Eraserhead

11:00pm - Friday, May 18, 2018

David Lynch's debut feature, ERASERHEAD is one of the "classic" late night titles; a strange, surreal examination of male paranoia with a serious underlying "creep" factor is a perfect fit in our Friday Late Night Movie series on May 18.

Our hero and title character, Henry, faces a number of horrifying obstacles in meeting someone of the opposite sex, meeting her parents, and procreating. Produced during a one-and-a-half-year period while director Lynch was a student at the American Film Institute, the film launched him as a major new talent admired by cinephiles and filmmakers all over the world. It stands today as a milestone in personal, independent filmmaking. Henry (John Nance) resides alone in a bleak apartment surrounded by industrial gloom. When he discovers that an earlier fling with Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) left her pregnant, he marries the expectant mother and has her move in with him. Things take a decidedly strange turn when the couple's baby turns out to be a bizarre lizard-like creature that won't stop wailing. Other characters, including a disfigured lady who lives inside a radiator, inhabit the building and add to Henry's troubles.

"David Lynch's surreal ERASERHEAD uses detailed visuals and a creepy score to create a bizarre and disturbing look into a man's fear of parenthood." (Rotten Tomatoes)

"What makes EREASERHEAD great -- and still, perhaps the best of all Lynch's films? Intensity. Nightmare clarity. And perhaps also it's the single-mindedness of its vision." (Chicago Tribune)